Retail Operations Lead - Cape Town

M-KOPA is the pioneer and global leader of Connected Asset Financing that offers millions of underbanked customers access to life-enhancing products. Our advanced connected asset financing platform combines digital micropayments and IoT connectivity to offer access to products including solar lighting, televisions, fridges, smartphones, financial services and more. Our mission is to make financing for everyday essentials accessible to customers in Africa and beyond so they can achieve progress in their lives. Through the power of connected devices, we establish a unique and secure relationship with our customers, allowing them instant access to a product whilst building ownership overtime through flexible micro-payments. Through regular payments, customers can unlock access to more products and services to continue their relationship and build their credit history with M-KOPA.What this role actually owns The Retail Operations Lead is responsible for execution — making sure the retail channel performs, day in and day out, across every store within the team's portfolio. That ownership has real scope. You'll directly manage Retail Team Leads: setting expectations, running structured performance conversations, conducting formal reviews, and implementing performance improvement plans where needed. You'll own the full people management cycle for your direct reports — including participating actively in recruitment, supporting onboarding, and building team capability through ongoing coaching. The expectation is that you develop leaders, not just manage them. On the operational side, you'll drive accountability for sales performance across assigned stores — tracking results, identifying underperforming sites, and working with Team Leads to build and execute improvement plans. You'll conduct regular store visits to verify standards, confirm store readiness, and document outcomes. You'll monitor stock movement, ensure daily and weekly stock disciplines are being followed, and flag anomalies to the Retail Operations Manager without delay. Loss prevention in this context is a leadership behaviour, not a reporting function. You'll also serve as the operational liaison between your team and internal support functions — Customer Care, Warehouse, IT, Sales Operations — and review supplier invoices for stores within your portfolio for manager approval. When partner or supplier issues threaten trading, the escalation runs through you. What you bring Demonstrated experience in retail or multi-site field operations, with a proven track record of driving sales performance and operational standards across a distributed team or store network. Established capability in people leadership — you've managed, coached, and held individuals accountable in a field-based environment, and you can point to outcomes that reflect it. Strong data fluency and reporting discipline, with hands-on experience using Excel, dashboards, or retail/CRM systems to track performance and surface insights that drive decisions. A Bachelor's degree in Business, Operations Management, or a related field is required.